Chevre, there is again no parsha this week. This Shabbat, in Israel, is Shemini Atzeret and Simchat Torah (שְׁמִינִי עֲצֶרֶת - שמחת תורה). Outside Israel, Shabbat is Shemini Atzeret and Sunday is Simchat Torah. This holiday comes right after Sukkot, but is not connected with Sukkot. We don’t live in the Succah, we no longer pick up the lulav and etrog. After all the holidays we’ve had so far and the path of Teshuvah that started way back on Rosh Chodesh Elul, this is an additional holiday that is especially for Israel and HaShem to share an extra day together. Simchat Torah was added later outside of Israel, where having yet another extra day made sense. In Israel, the day is chock full of conflicting ideas with the liturgy of Shemini Atzeret and the Torah Dancing of Simchat Torah.

I would like to mention that we do have a parshal parsha called Zot HaBracha, which goes through all the tribes and gives a short bracha or blessing to them. We then have the death of Moses and a declaration that none shall rise to the same quality of prophecy. With that we conclude the Torah and immediately start again.

Finally, I’d like to share a small Invent and Simplify project that I had this week. Normally, I keep my etrog in it’s protective foam netting in the case with my lulav. This makes it easier to carry everything to shul every day. This year, however, my etrog was to big to fit in the lulav case. So I took some duck-tape and made a handle. To keep the bottom half from being sticky, I used a napkin to attach to the duck-tape which made a nice soft handle. And I happened to make it just long enough to be able to fold down around the box when I need to get the etrog out. I’m planning on saving this box in the same place with the succah decorations so I can use it again next year.

In addition to the other places you may find these Divrei Torah, I also now have a whatsapp group that you can find them. https://chat.whatsapp.com/Efj4sNk5ocFEj2ITpgprXq

Shabbat Shalom, Chag Sameach.